I Must See What's Out There
by Mintbear
Summary: One does not ignore bloodline for the sake of tradition. Especially if one is descended from not one, but two famous captains.


It was a warm night on Mars. The breeze was cool, fresh, crystalline. The young man lay in the tall grass, hands behind his full head of dark auburn hair, an ancient Terran composer on his earbud. J.S. Bach. "Air on a G String". A favorite of his when he needed to think. And tonight he needed to really think. He took in a breath as he gazed up at the stars. There was Sirius, Polaris, Rigel…the Utopia Planitia fleet yards… Up in orbit.

My God, how he longed to be out there. On a starship, in command, the rumble of the nacelles, the sounds of the computer. Unforms, regulations, orders, beeps, chirps, all of it. He'd been on a starship once; an old Nebula Class ship. From the moment he stepped foot onto the deck itself, he knew his soul was home. He was where he belonged. When his family left, he wanted to bolt. To run from the transporter room and hide in Engineering. He knew it wouldn't have worked. Internal sensors would have found him and they would have carried his 4-year-old self upside down by the ankles back to the transport pad.

It didn't matter. That was twelve years ago. He'd spent the last decade or more on Mars. At the Chateau. Siblings, mother, father, gardeners, field hands, customers, alien tourists…All to see the great "Chateau Picard". What a bore. What a prison.

Prison. Even with the beautiful buildings, the old Provincial setting, the centuries-aged beams and dinnerwear and tools and equipment… The classical music, the wine, the fine foods. All the natural beauty and vineyards and fields, didn't matter. To Bobby, it was a big damned prison.

And he needed to get out.

So he applied. Without permission of course. Father and mother would never have allowed it. They wanted the kids to all go into the wine industry with them. Follow a centuries-old family tradition which was only briefly interrupted by Grandpapa's "hiccup". Damn them! Minimizing the man's greatness. His achievements. They talked and acted as if it were a…a fluke! They ignored their own destinies, their own histories, to have this false…paradise on Mars. Never mind how his ancestors tamed the American "Wild West", settled Mars, were royalty on an alien world with ancient symbols and items of status (yes, even that old clay pot of Grandma Dee's. The one with mold growing inside it that he'd accidentally broken while trying to "juggle" as a small child…)

So he applied. It made his stomach churn. Not the application, that lifted his heart to the stars. No, the idea that his parents would find out and fight to cancel his application.

Like a pair of jailers, blocking his parole…denying his freedom.

How could they? He was sixteen. He was old enough. He had the scores, the grades, the lineage, the prestige, the family, the drive and the ambition. He was the culmination of generations of excellence. Starfleet wanted him. Starfleet NEEDED him. Since the end of the war, Starfleet itself had been damn near drafting anyone qualified in order to fill quota: parents, teenagers, orphans, eager and healthy seniors, everyone. Even members of species not yet in the Federation. "Serve aboard our new, advanced fleet of starships. See the galaxy. Explore strange new worlds and meet new lifeforms! Be the first to make first contact, to colonize, to learn." He wanted that.

"Have Curiosity, Will Travel." should have been a slogan he scribbled on his entrance exam. Better still: "I'm a Picard! Commission me, please! For the love of the Q, get me outta here!"

Too desperate? Maybe. But he WAS a Picard. And Picards belonged as explorers. At least…he did.

The footfall of the man walking up was too soft in the long grass for him to notice. The voice wasn't.

"Robert." It was the deep, sonorous voice of his father. Not 'RAH-burt', as most of the other kids with his name were pronounced. 'Row-BEAR'. As his long-dead great-uncle was named. How nice. To be named after an old, bitter pickle like that guy… Oh well, he wore the name with pride.

"Father." Came his flat laconic reply. As if to say, "Thanks for interrupting me you bastard." The English accent only added to his father's air of pomposity.

The man stopped a few meters from his son, turned his face downward to the teen. His brow furrowed in thought, as if he were trying to discern whether his son's empathy could sense his emotions. "No." he decided, "Robert and Tomas do not have the same sensitivity as their sisters. Never have. Not like Isabel or Xana, or even little Kestrel." The three girls carried that witchcraft of mind reading inherited from their great-grandmother, whom Xana was named after. The boys also had the genetic talent, but far less pronounced. For them it was more like a subconscious intuition, not a subspace radio.

Or so he thought. Robert often hid his familial gift, for fear of being accused of spying on others. Unlike his siblings, his mental ability was nearly full-fledged telepathy, and not the weakened 'empathy' experienced by the others. He could read his father's mind like a subspace radio with a slight amount of ionic interference… Didn't help here though. There was nothing unusual in his father's mind.

"You're wondering what I'm doing out so late." He said, not moving his body or eyes to acknowledge his father's presence. He kept his gaze locked firmly on the constellations. "Why it's nearly midnight and I'm still out here looking at the stars when I should be back in the…Chateau." The word carried deep bitterness. This wasn't lost on the elder Picard, who clasped his hands behind his back and raised himself slightly higher.

"You uh, you need to think", Rene voiced, his speech carefully metered to project that famous control which all Picards were noted for. "You've done something…rash." The pause was deliberate. Robert smiled.

"Too much time around mother, father? Or did she tell you?"

"No." The word was one of finality, but held an expectation that Robert reveal what he was thinking of. Might as well tell him. What was he going to do?

"I applied."

"Applied… Where." Robert heard the caution and suspicion in his father's voice. Time to ram the answer down his mind.

"I'm going to be a starship captain. I've applied to Starfleet. I'm going." The final word was more of a threat than a plea. A sort of 'I dare you to stop me'.

"No."

Robert braced himself on the ground and got to his feet. He steadied himself and tugged his shirt down. An old family habit. He then thrust his chin out and looked down his nose at his father, chest puffed forward. Another mannerism, but from his mother's side of the family. Tall genes on his mother's side gave him a few centimeters edge over Rene, despite being over two decades younger.

"Yes. And you and mother can do nothing to prevent me. It is my wish and destiny, and I intend to fulfill that destiny. And I am old enough."

Rene took a deep breath, sighed through his nose, smooshed his mouth into a near kiss, that age-old Picard fashion when he needed to choose his words carefully.

"Have you told your mother?"

"Not yet. Wanted you to know first. But…I applied this morning, and they're accepting candidates within 24 hours these days."

"As what, if I may ask?"

Robert nodded once, slowly. "Science division. Work my way up from that."

Rene turned and began walking back to the Chateau. Robert followed a pace behind, giving his father time to think. Rene reached up and smoothed his white hairline, which had receded severely. It was once a wild mane of wavy red hair. Decades ago. Damn that Picard gene! Now it was white, and nearly gone. He kept it short, as all ancestors had. No sense looking…uncivilized.

Robert on the other hand, had grown his hair in to a single, long ponytail. And with a young goatee and mustache starting to sprout, he was beginning to look somewhat like a Caribbean pirate of centuries ago.

The two men walked back to the gate, opened it.

Rene stopped and turned to his son. Looked away.

"Is it just…possible", Rene started, "that one does not get to *be* a Picard without taking risks? Without doing what he feels is right, damn the consequences?"

Rene smirked, "You've been reading too much of your grandfather's autobiography. That, young man, was a terrible paraphrase of his wisdom to a young William Riker."

"But you recognize it" Robert returned, "And you know what I mean."

"Yes." Rene blurted. Both men fell silent. The echo of one Jean-Luc Picard reverberated through that 'yes'. A warning. Deliberate, slightly threatening. "Son", the father began again, "I…your mother…need you here. At the Chateau."

Robert opened his mouth to protest. Rene quickly interrupted.

"But…considering, the circumstances. And that you will probably leave anyway, with or without our permission. I…acknowledge, and understand. I am not happy. But if you truly feel that this is right…"

Robert quickly finished his father's thought, betraying his telepathy, "Then I must do what I know to be the right thing. And I must not let anyone stand in my way. Thank you, father."

Rene smiled, "You interrupted me. A habit of your mother's. You take after her side far more than mine."

Robert bounced once on the balls of his feet. "Somehow I don't think 'Bob Riker' sounds as 'Bob Picard' when being addressed by fellow captains."

"Terrible." His father retorted. He held a single finger up towards Robert's face, "Promise me you will never, ever go by 'Bob' or 'Bobby' anything, when you earn that uniform. Your name is 'Robert'. Row…bear. Not 'Bobby'."

"Lil' Kestral's gonna be crushed to hear what I've done." Robert suggested, smiling wide and bouncing his eyebrows, deflecting the request, "She's going to go 'anger silence' on me again." His mind looked inward, mumbled, "Maybe I shouldn't tell her yet. Not until I'm at the Acadamy."

Rene put his hands on his son's shoulders. "Promise me, son. Please." Robert could hear vocally and telepathically his father's plea. This wasn't just a plea not to go by a less-than-respectible name. This was a plea to keep the Picard family name, and also the Riker family name, free of mediocrity; to honor them with deliberate thought and decisive deeds. If he's going to loosen his son to the stars, the least he could do is send him off as an ambassador to the galaxy, and not let the boy tarnish the family history.

"I promise, Father." Rene patted his son's shoulders twice in appreciation. He was never good at hugs.

"Good. Now…" he said, as they resumed their walk back to the family home, "We have work tomorrow. Time to get those four hours of sleep we still may have. We can discuss your…application, in the morning, over breakfast."

"Maybe we should have the replicator order Mother a chocolate croissant to ease the shock? Or a straight sundae?"

"Why? How badly do you think she'll take it?" Rene regretted the question the moment he asked. Robert simply voiced what Rene already knew.

"She's…a…Ri-ker" Robert hinted, letting each syllable of the last word fall with the weight of implication. "She's going to be shocked, angry, offended, sad…"

"Yes, yes." Rene hand-waved as they reached the front door. "I'll…I'll tell her tonight. Let her take her anger out on me first for not forbidding you."

"Thank you."

"Well," Rene said, as the two entered the house and closed the door, "You are a Picard. And a Riker. I dreaded this day, but I always knew you'd do something like this. It was a combination which always loathed being…held to a simpler life." He looked around, as if to acknowledge that the life he and Natasha had chosen was far tamer and calmer than that of Starfleet officers.

Robert could sense his father's worry at him finally sitting in the Captain's chair and never looking back.

"I promise to return to take over the vineyard once they offer me the Admiralty in…fifty years."

"You'd damn well better. I'll not leave it to Tomas to turn our home into a…a brothel."

"Resort."

"He said brothel."

"No, I'm pretty sure he said 'resort'. Like a 'mini-Risa', but on Mars."

"Risa, brothel, whatever. Same thing. Point is, your brother has too many wild ideas to leave our family estate and business in his hands. Rather leave it to Bell and Xana. Better for it to become a sleepy bed-and-breakfast than a playland for..." he sighed in disgust.

"Or for Kestrel to fashion it into a health spa? Actually, I think I remember Tomas saying something about naked Orion slave women running around everywhere while our Ferengi guests…."

Rene lifted a hand. "Don't start."

A short silence passed between them.

"Now then" the father continued. "Four AM. Don't sleep in."

"Yes sir. Goodnight, Father. And thank you again."

"Goodnight Robert."

Robert watched as his father walked quietly upstairs to break the news to his wife. A slight shiver waterfalled down his spine. But the deed had been done, and even if she was completely distraught, he wasn't turning back or changing his mind.

He smiled with a small conceit. He was going to become a Starfleet officer. And he had earned his father's approval.

Time to get the Picards back into space. Back to the frontier.

Robert walked over to an LCARS terminal and keyed a few buttons. The image of a starship in drydock above Earth appeared. Half completed. He touched the monitor as if reaching out to the still mostly unbuilt-ship.

"My ship" he whispered. The data on the starship listed a launch and commission date six years away. "Just in time for me to transfer over" he thought.

Zooming in on the live image, he focused on the top of the saucer section.

Though not complete, the upper hull of the saucer carried enough of the surface plating for a name and registration number to be correctly guessed:

"N_C 17_-G"

.

.

"U.S._. E_ter_r_se"


End file.
